Plate-type belt fasteners for connecting together a pair of belt ends are well known. Plate-type belt fasteners typically comprise upper and lower plates which are positioned adjacent the upper and lower surfaces of the belt ends to be connected, with both the upper and lower plates spanning the pair of belt ends. Both the upper and lower plates have holes which align with holes formed in the belt ends. Bolts are passed through the aligned holes of the lower plate, belt, and upper plate of both belt ends, and nuts screwed onto the shank of the bolt projecting through the upper plate to clamp the upper and lower plates tightly about the belt ends. Typically, a plurality of such belt fasteners, each spanning the pair of belt ends to be connected, are provided along the width of the belt ends to maintain interconnection of the belt ends across their width.
It is known to provide a preassembled combination of a lower plate and fastening bolts to preclude the necessity of having to assembly these parts prior to Inserting the bolts in the belt ends when making a splice. The preassembly of the lower plate and bolts speeds the job of belt splicing. The bolts have integral bolt heads and are maintained in their respective lower plate apertures by washers secured to the bolts on the opposite side of the lower plate from the bolt heads.
Heretofore, the bolts were held in fixed positions on the lower plate by steel spring clips that held the bolts at a predetermined orientation in which a pair of grooves in the bolt head were aligned with and received a pair of projections from the lower plate. The interlocked projections and grooves held the bolt from turning when the nuts were tightened on the bolts. The spring clips were removed and discarded. Sometimes, through inadvertence or carelessness the spring clips were allowed to litter a floor of a mine or other facility having a conveyor and the spring clips could eventually get into a conveyor. The spring clips were relatively expensive and were usually provided only for large orders of plate belt fasteners. The spring clips were manually applied to the bolt shanks thereby adding to the cost of this preassembled belt plate fasteners.
A Brazilian company, ONCA Ind. Metalurgicas S.A. had supplied plastic washers rather than spring steel clips to hold the bolts in oriented positions, and had filed thereon a Brazilian application BR 6600420, which is now abandoned.